If you're lucky, sometimes a close family member will offer to stay with you following the birth of a new baby. This is usually a really helpful, kind offer, and something that many new parents are happy to welcome.
One woman recently shared on Reddit that her mom moved in following the birth of her first baby, a daughter who is now 8 weeks old. She describes her birth as traumatic and says that it's been amazing to have her mom in the house. So amazing, in fact, that she asked her mom to stay longer … but she didn't run the idea by her husband first.
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She says he's pretty mad that she made this unilateral choice, and now he's acting out in ways that feel like punishment.
The couple just had their first baby.
The mom shares that their daughter was born around two months ago:
"My husband and I just had our first child 8 weeks ago, a beautiful baby girl. After she was born I asked my mom to come stay with us for a couple weeks to help with everything because I had a traumatic birth and we are new parents."
Her mom has been REALLY helpful.
It turns out that her mom has been really helpful, too:
"After those couple of weeks I realized how nice it was to have an extra person to help with daily household stuff or to give one of us a break if the baby wakes up during the night, so I asked my mom to stay longer."
But she didn't include her husband.
It makes sense that the woman would want her mom to stay, but she didn't ask her husband what he thought first, and she probably should have. After all, it's his home, too.
"I did this without talking to my husband about it and pretty much just told him about it after I already asked my mom to stay. He was kind of mad about it, but I told him I was still recovering and he's just going to need to deal with my mom being here longer."
Now that her husband is back at work, their schedule is shifting.
Her husband also just went back to work, and that means he's at work all day and then comes home and takes over with the baby.
"I have 12-weeks of maternity leave, but my husband only had 6 so he recently went back to work. When he comes home he will take over the baby duties and he's great at giving her baths and getting her to sleep. It warms my heart to see how good he is with our baby girl."
It sounds like there's another problem besides her mom.
On top of all of this, the woman also writes that her husband hasn't been showing her affection since their baby was born:
"The problem though is that he shows me almost zero affection or attention. When I was pregnant he would give me daily foot rubs and tell me how beautiful I am and how much he loves me. Now, I can barely get a good morning or good night out of him."
He says he doesn't have the energy anymore.
Her husband says he's just really, really tired:
"His excuse is that he's tired from work and pretty much being on solo baby duty after he gets home. He told he he has a finite amount of energy and can't pamper me the same way anymore."
She recently asked for attention.
So she took matters into her own hands and asked him for a foot rub the other night, but no dice:
"The other night after the baby went to sleep I asked him to give me foot rub like he used to. He said he was exhausted and just wanted an hour to himself before he goes to sleep."
"He said I should ask my mom for a foot rub but I said that's not the same."
And he's using her words against her.
"He told me he never gets a break between work and the baby so I'm just going to have to deal with being lower on his priority list right now.
"I feel like that was a low blow to use my own words against me like that."
Now she wants to know: Was she a jerk in the first place for telling him to "deal with" her mom?
People are not on her side.
If the woman thought Reddit would come out to support her, she was wrong. One person wrote, "I agree that it doesn’t sound like she shares any of the baby duties when her husband gets home.
"Childcare is absolutely a job. It should be treated equally to her husband’s out of the home job, which means both of them work all day and then SHARE the night shift. Of course he’s exhausted."
It gets worse.
The same person continued, "And she just moved her mother in without talking to him? That's grounds for the 'Here's two business cards. One is a counselor and the other is a divorce lawyer. Take your pick.' move Reddit loves."
People are also confused about why her mom is there.
People also don't understand what exactly her mom is doing if her husband is up all night with the baby. One commenter asked:
"What's the point of the mom if husband has to do all the work whenever he's home? So she doesn't do anything at home during the day? Or she gets to split the day with her mom?"
Having a baby doesn't give you final say.
Another person points out that having a baby doesn't mean you get to make all the rules:
"He still cannot experience being a parent on his own without MIL around all the time. He had no say in the decision, just because you had the baby doesn’t mean you make the rules."
Ultimately, these two need to talk.
"You need to have a conversation with your husband to find out what’s really going on, and work together to try to find a balance that works for both of you. And yes, you should apologize for inviting your mother to stay without consulting him."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
